


the beginning and end of everything

by cmbing



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode: s04e15 Inauguration: Over There, F/M, what the snowball scene could have been and lead to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:40:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28848450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmbing/pseuds/cmbing
Summary: “With me,” he clarifies, a quick clearing of his throat. “I want you there with me at all eight inaugural balls. Every dance, every glass of champagne—together.”
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 19
Kudos: 69





	the beginning and end of everything

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys long time no see. school totally destroyed my creative energy for j/d fics .... but it has made a small appearance for this.
> 
> anyways, i love the snowball scene in tww and always think about what could have been if josh had gone alone. and thus, this lil fic was born

**1\. He kisses her, and she tastes like snow.**

Distantly, in the fogginess of his memory, he knows the taxi rumbles behind him, waiting for Josh to pull Donna into the backseat and get on with their ways. But all he hears is this: the intake of her breath, her nails catching on his jacket’s lapels, a soft gasp parsed between their tongues. Her lips are soft, but she presses with a reverence he thought he was too sharp to know. His eyelashes feel heavy with snow when she finally pulls away and he takes her in: a gentle smile, a slight of red on her cheeks too warm to be from the winter weather.

“Josh,” she says quietly.

“I had to get you.” His words rush out of him. “You have to be there.”

“Be there?” Her eyebrow hitches.

He swallows, feels a heaviness to his chest that hasn’t pressed in years. “With me,” he clarifies, a quick clearing of his throat. “I want you there with me at all eight inaugural balls. Every dance, every glass of champagne—together.”

He knows he’s unraveled something most delicate. It’s intricate what they’ve built, friendship wrestled with love and longing glances. Donna’s better than him, he thinks. Goes on dates, buys nice dresses, smears on a smile when an attractive aide passes by. Josh throws back another cup of coffee and hides behind lofty Yale Law vocabulary. His emotions brim and heat his skin, trapping his tongue, pressing him to say things he knows he shouldn’t.

Her hand is on his wrist. Moves again, finds his cheek. He finds himself leaning into her warmed touch.

“Josh,” she says, but it’s far more sure than earlier, “I want to be there, too. Every dance, every—“

Her voice drops, and her eyes flick down. Oh, his heart stumbles, _oh_. He leans forward and catches her mouth with his. Every and all of this. The taste of peppermint on her lips, the brush of each kiss losing its hesitance, a collapse of walls and facades.

Josh ducks his head back, biting back a laugh. “We should go. I feel bad making the driver sit there and wait for us to finish, well… you know.”

She does know. He feels her take his hand and bring him towards the taxi. They slide into the backseat and ask to be dropped off back at the White House. There’s a moment then, sitting on opposite sides, fingers flitting across the center seat. He looks at her, and she tilts her head to him. It could all be so serious and fraught with an awkwardness Josh cannot stomach, but then… she laughs. Sharp and bright in the black night, her mouth split open and her eyes like the crash of waves.

It makes him smile harder than he thought he ever could, so he pulls at her hand, pulls at her waist, fingers inching over her hip bones. He kisses her, almost struggling because he can’t stop grinning. Her hands still over his jaw, catching under the hinge of bone, tipping his face towards her and drawing him close. It’s all so intoxicating, he wonders how he went years without it.

Snow falls against the windows, the radio stumbles into a jazzy tune, and they lean in further.

**2\. He takes her across America.**

Will complains of being caught flatfooted.

“Josh is the deputy chief of staff, and Donna is the deputy press secretary! The fact that they both get to leave and try to pursue what appears to be a dead-end of a candidate—“

“Enough,” Bartlet says with a raised hand and tired glare. “If Josh and Donna believe that Congressman Santos is the best candidate to win the primaries and hopefully be my successor, who am I to stop them?”

They don’t stop. Josh and Donna grow something serious and game-changing in a small New Hampshire office, founded on pure grit and democratic belief. It’s exhausting work, following them into the night and dipping into the worst of weather. New England is bitter, and they breathe out silver puffs of frosted air. Ice blankets car windows and cuts their teeth. There are arguments with Santos and even the thought of bringing in Amy (Josh says no. And it’s not out of fear of jealousy or rehashed feelings. It’s just old and tired and a life he threw himself into for no reason other than fear).

Donna coaches Santos. She builds a network of volunteers and puts together a brilliant commercial campaign. She stands tall and molds into an unshakable force. Josh finds himself sitting on the sidelines, except he’s bursting in pride. This is her—the drive, the precision, the woman destined to be more than anything just.

In Iowa, he presses her up against the wall of an elevator. His hands are rough and plying, slipping past her coat and gripping the small of her back. He leans into her, hips bracketing hips, his mouth dipping under her ear and lingering, pulling out each gasp. She holds his jacket to secure herself, and he brings a leg between hers, smothering their sense of space and igniting a flame.

They stumble down the hall, laugh when Josh can’t open the door into their hotel room and Donna has to do it for him. She steps inside and then turns around, luring him with a hooked finger and a smirk spreading across her soft features. He obliges and kicks the door shut, shucking off his jacket. The do not disturb sign sways in the hallway as they undo each other under the sheets.

They rise early, and Donna remembers two creams, one sugar when he asks for coffee. Josh sits shirtless and bare as he pours over binders and drafts of speeches while Donna paces in an old Wisconsin sweatshirt, cellphone pressed between her shoulder and ear. His eyes linger on her, listening to the conviction of her voice and biting back a smile when she catches his gaze with a piqued eyebrow. He thinks of when they first met in New Hampshire, all those arduous years ago, and how she’s both the same and fused with difference. She carried herself with a boldness he found too compelling to ignore, taking his calls and stealing his wills with an easy smile. He handed her his ID tag—and perhaps his heart.

“There’s a veteran’s breakfast that I want Santos to attend,” she says once she hangs up the phone. “And a town hall next week. Considering that we’re only four points behind, any exposure is good exposure. The problem is that most people just don’t know Santos’ name, nevertheless his politics. He’s smart, charismatic, and attractive. Once our constituents know him, they won’t forget.”

He grins. “Attractive, huh?”

The corners of her lips tip down. “That’s your takeaway from my big spiel?”

“Just noticing your choice of words.”

“You’re such a man.”

He shifts to the end of the bed and pulls at her sweatshirt, gathering her between his legs. “You love me.”

"Sadly—"

" _Sadly_?" he faux-pouts.

She lets out a laugh. “I do love you.”

They revel in their proximity, her hand falling to his chest, his heart an unrelenting thump. His thumb runs over the fading fabric, thinking of how he gets to know her like this. Open yet strong, looking still so young amid the chase of it all. She never lets it burden her the way it can consume him. She makes it easier, like he can find her and remember how to breathe.

He tilts his head up at her, sees her eyes, the faint lines that crinkle when she smiles. “Donna?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to win.”

A flick of an eye-roll. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself.”

“Donna,” his hand grabs hers, “this is ours.”

Her engagement ring catches in the light of his grin.

**3\. There is a wedding at the White House.**

It’s after Santos clinches the Democratic nomination, and everyone allows themselves to catch their breaths for one weekend. The August sky is blue and expansive, curling around the illustrious white building as vivacious flowers wave in the breeze. Cars pull through the gates, laughs rattle about the hallways, and a sense of joy permeates in a way that politics tends to forget.

Family and friends and various politicians flock to the affair. There’s Josh in his black tux and Donna in her white dress, C.J. wiping away her tears and Sam offering a clap on the back. Bartlet and Leo burst with a pride that Josh always imagined his father would have on such a day, holding their revered deputy chief of staff for an extra moment. Toby offers a hint of a grin, and Ainsley Hayes makes a bright-eyed appearance, laughing with Donna about a day that feels so long ago, with flowers and teasings and mentions of an anniversary.

Vows are exchanged. Donna kisses Josh for several moments beyond chaste. Josh’s gold wedding band flares against her dress. They never stop smiling. Her hand is gentle in his when they walk back down the aisle, crowded by wide smiles and cheers of the couple, one so destined to avoid their feelings but somehow worked their way into being husband and wife. It’s eight years of _finally_ and _of course_ and _if only they found themselves sooner_.

He lets her dash a spot of frosting on his nose. Lets her kiss it off, and then he kisses her, tastes the buttercream and champagne on her tongue. She laughs against his mouth, laughs at the sound of their wedding bands clinking, laughs when she pulls him to the dance floor and sways in his arms to a syrupy love song. They find themselves back at the night of eight inaugural balls, falling into their feelings and each other. It had become so clear then, how their hands joined and her cheek found his shoulder. It’s even easier now, his lips at the crown of her forehead and her fingers slipping over his bowtie. They’ve carved out something intimate within the hallways of the West Wing, and he curls into its weight.

It’s later, when guests exchange soft goodbyes and feet shuffle out of the White House, that Donna and Josh make their way home. They had decided to push their honeymoon off until the election was over, either to celebrate Santos’ win or smooth over a loss, at least under the guise of a warm, Hawaiian day. Instead, they head to their Georgetown apartment, finding the warmth of their bed more alluring than the starkness of a Marriott.

They're still tipsy when they stumble inside, laughing and messily stripping each other of their clothes. Donna delights when she spots a bouquet of roses on her bedside table—“C.J. has every connection, I’ve learned,” Josh grins—and listens to Josh relish her in reverence. Whisper out his enduring loves, her defining beauties, his unflappable sense of how they were always supposed to be this way.

“You’re my husband,” she says against his cheek, breathing in his aftershave.

He tilts her head to his and holds her gaze, breaking into a grin. “And you’re my wife.”

A sense of forever holds onto the room.

**0\. He doesn’t go alone.**

Distantly, and it’s all too loud, Will and Danny are cracking jokes. Toby grumbles, and Charlie speaks of Zoey with a fondness beyond first love. Donna’s eyebrows skewer as he shakes in the cold, and he almost tells her everything. Blame it on the frostbite and the romance of fallen snow, he wants to call her an angel, the flooding streetlamps catching her hair and twisting it into amber.

She takes his coat and almost his pride, watching him with eyes too kind and catching him with fingers too soft. He finds his words in a joke, something about her sitting on his lap because there isn’t nearly enough room. She’s used to his flirtatiousness, and he knows she doesn’t realize that he’s leaning on a line he’s threatened to cross since Christmas. Because it’s always a laugh and never too serious with him. Unless it’s politics and unless it’s his sister and unless it’s anything but her.

(But—it’s her. Her first and last and flooding the rest of his thoughts. Again and again, he thinks of her. In the blur of the West Wing and the short-fuse of his apartment when his bullet wound starts to throb. Her smile and her eyes, again and again).

In the car, she settles into his lap and chats away with Charlie, inattentive to the way Josh’s hands almost shake. A couple of deft fingers settle above her hips, simply securing her he tells himself, but it’s beyond that. How he reaches out to her, finds her gaze and words most grounding of all. After Roslyn and a trip to the hospital on Christmas and those days where he cannot find the wits to save a bill.

Josh, she says, and it almost worries him how much he loves the sound of his name on her lips. 

She dances with him once, then drunkenly twice, flitting between him and C.J. and her plethora of friends. Donna is always the most charming in the room, letting out a laugh and extending an inviting smile. Celebration and joy imbue the night with the alcohol flowing and music pulsing. He knows he should step into the jubilation, let the weight of their hard campaigning work wash off and a sense of accomplishment set in.

But he merely watches her dance, this time with a brunette suitor who wears a fitting grin, and stands unsteadily. 

**Author's Note:**

> so that ending huh..... i really had to go out and let reality to crash back down on poor joshua's shoulders.


End file.
